


Stay

by rarest_thing



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, Other, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 18:04:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarest_thing/pseuds/rarest_thing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The depositions are over and the whole thing should be behind them, right? Unfortunately, it isn't, and Mark and Eduardo feel more lost than ever. Can one night reconnect them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This work of fiction is based off of the characters from the 2010 movie, not their real-life counterparts. I don't own these characters or The Social Network, but I do take creative liberties with them for no financial gain.  
> Notes/Warnings: Swearing, alcohol use, a bit of blood and a somewhat explicit sex scene.

The depositions were over, and although Mark knew he’d lost, he found that, for the first time, he really couldn’t care less. No, his mind was fixed on something else. Or rather, someone else. Eduardo, who had sat so straight in his chair across the table from Mark. Eduardo, who had dressed to the nines to drag their personal lives through the dirt. Eduardo, whose voice had sounded so flat as he declared, “I was your only friend. You had one friend.”

Was. Had. Past tense.

True, Mark hadn’t spoken to Eduardo since he stormed out of the Facebook offices nearly two years ago, but somehow he’d always clung to the hope that this would resolve itself. That one day they’d be friends again. Granted, Mark hadn’t exactly done much to break the silence. He’d tried calling a couple of times, but he’d always hung up after one or two rings, because what the fuck was he supposed to say? In general, Facebook kept him very busy, and it was easy to lose himself in his work and ignore the hole that Eduardo had left behind. But the depositions had been a lot harder than he expected because there was nothing to distract him from the fact that Eduardo was literally four feet away from him and was reeking of hatred. He could practically see the hurt radiating in waves from Eduardo’s body.

It was funny. Eduardo had always been like that. He projected his emotions onto others, whether consciously or unconsciously, Mark could never tell. All he knew was that it was impossible to be gloomy when a happy Eduardo was in the room. Likewise, when he was sad or angry, he became a black hole, sucking everyone within a fifty foot radius down into the shadows with him. Luckily, that side of him was rare, appearing only once in a blue moon at Harvard. But the depositions were different. Mark had never seen Eduardo like that. After gazing into the darkness of Eduardo’s eyes, he felt like he’d never see light again.

The conference room was growing dark, the smooth table reflecting the streetlights outside the building. In what he considered to be a monumental lapse of judgment, Mark had friend requested Erica Albright. What was he expecting anyway? For her to sweep back into his life with her bright eyes and kind heart and tell him everything was going to be okay? Because it was starting to sink in that he had everything he could ever want, except a single true friend who would care about him the way Erica and Eduardo had. Even Dustin and Chris had grown distant over the years. They had their own lives, their own circles. And something in the way Dustin and Chris looked at him nowadays made him think that they had never quite forgiven him for whatever he had done to fuck up the relationship between the four of them. And maybe they never would. Hell, Mark couldn’t even forgive himself.

He shut his laptop and left for his hotel, his home during the depositions. He briefly registered that it was a cold night, and if Eduardo had been there he might have chided Mark for not dressing warmer. When he arrived at his penthouse suite, he flopped on the bed, laptop present as always. There was some kind of TV porno playing in the background, but Mark didn’t have the energy to pay attention to it. He resumed refreshing Erica’s Facebook profile, because hey, it was something to do.

He strongly considered raiding the mini-bar, like he did almost every other night, but something stopped him from getting up. Maybe because he felt some kind of need to punish himself for all of this. Maybe because for once throughout these long weeks, he wanted to feel something, as opposed to being numb, floating in an alcoholic stupor. Alcohol had been his best friend throughout this whole thing, drowning out the pain of seeing all those faces over and over again. But mostly just that one face. Mostly just Eduardo. Because, when it came down to it, he really missed how Eduardo used to look at him.

He realized that moment how incredibly and unabashedly gay that thought sounded, even in his head, but it was true. He missed that look of concern, that look of…something. A mix between pain and happiness. The furrowed brows, the kind eyes. He remembered seeing that face across a crowded room, the night of one of their first hacking parties back at Harvard. It was one of his only clear memories of that night, because, once again, he had been drunk.

Eduardo was mingling with the others, talking, laughing, congratulating the newest member of Mark’s team with a slap on the back and a kind smile. He was so magnetic, so confident, so…everything Mark was not. And Mark had resolved to take as many shots as he needed to become just like Wardo.

Unfortunately, he’d gone overboard and had started to stumble. It was then that he caught Wardo’s attention. And that face. The eyebrows, knitting in concern. Mark watched as Eduardo excused himself, took Mark by the shoulders, and steered him out of the room.

Mark remembered Eduardo helping him home, but after that, things got fuzzy. He could swear, though, that he remembered falling into bed with Eduardo at his side. He could swear he remembered an arm wrapped around his back. He could swear he remembered burying his face into Eduardo’s chest and shutting out the world. And he could swear he remembered telling him, “Stay.” Yes, he could definitely almost remember that word escaping his lips. Stay, Eduardo. Stay.

But when he woke up the next morning, he was alone in bed. He’d spent the rest of the day trying to remember the events of the previous night, trying to remember if Wardo had ever been there at all.

A couple of hours later, when it was clear that Erica was not going to respond to his request any time soon, he started calling. Not Erica, but Eduardo, whose number was still in his speed dial. The phone rang until it hit Eduardo’s voicemail, and Mark wondered if he had gotten a late flight out of here. He found himself desperately hoping that Eduardo would have had the good sense to stay one more night, because he imagined that Eduardo was probably just as exhausted as he was. And also because it comforted him, somehow, knowing that they were in the same city. It wasn’t quite like being in the same room, but it was something. He called eight times, with no answer. Then, on the ninth try, just as he was about to call it a night, someone picked up.

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds. Then, “Hello?”

“Eduardo? It’s Mark.”

A pause. Then, in a strange, slurred voice, “How’d you get this number?”

“I never deleted it. I thought we could maybe, uh, talk.”

“We’re done talking, Marky boy,” Eduardo replied, still in that strange voice. Mark heard the noise of something breaking in the background—glass, maybe. Then he understood. Eduardo was drunk.

At Harvard, Eduardo hadn’t been much of a drinker. Usually he avoided the stuff, but on the rare occasion that he did drink, he almost always went overboard. The drinking was almost always triggered by those long phone calls he got from his father every now and then, which usually ended with raised voices. Eduardo would hang up, his face a storm cloud, and declare something along the lines of, I need to forget this night.

“You okay?” he asked Eduardo.

“Fuck you. You don’t get to ask me that,” said the voice on the other line.

Mark tended to avoid Eduardo when he was drunk, because his already dynamic emotions became amplified tenfold. Chris was usually the one who took care of him, getting him cleaned up and into bed. Chris was always good like that. But Chris wasn’t here. And Mark could tell that Eduardo was definitely not okay. He sounded sort of…unhinged. And he felt compelled to do something about it.

“Tell me where you are, Wardo,” he said.

“No.”

“Please.”

“Fuck no!”

“Fine! Drink yourself to death for all I care, you asshole!” Mark shouted. In lieu of hanging up, he threw the phone.

It took only a few minutes for his rage to fade into worry. Wardo knew nothing of moderation when he was upset. And despite everything, Mark did not actually want his ex-best friend to drink himself to death. He had enough on his conscience.

He pulled out his laptop and ran a quick search. There were several hotels in the area, but only two were rated with five stars. Mark was staying in one of them, so that left the Doubletree, which was only a few blocks to the east. Eduardo would want to be as comfortable as possible throughout the long depositions, so it only made sense for him to be there. Mark supposed he could hack into the hotel’s guest list, but he liked to think that he knew Eduardo well enough to find him without a few hundred lines of code. Plus, during the time it’d take to hack the Doubletree, who knows how much more Eduardo would drink. Mark left the hotel, trying to control his frenetic heartbeat as he headed east. Funny, how all this time they’d been minutes away from each other.

When he arrived at the front desk and asked for Eduardo, the receptionist replied, “Mr. Saverin has specifically asked not to be disturbed during his stay here.”

Mark’s mind raced, hunting for a good excuse. “Please, I’m his cousin. There’s been a family emergency, I need to see him.” He did his best to look worried, which was easy due to the fact that he actually was. The receptionist relented and gave him the room number. Now if only he could get Eduardo to let him in.

When he reached room 1017, he knocked at the door, but there was no answer. He tried calling Eduardo’s name, but the room remained silent. He worried that Eduardo had passed out on the other side of the door. At that moment a tiny woman pushing a cart of janitorial supplies rounded the corner. Mark put his worried face on again.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” he asked her. “I’m such a fool…I seem to have locked myself out of my room. Do you think you could let me in?”

The act must have worked, because the woman unlocked the door for him. Mark decided the Doubletree really needed to work on their security. He thanked the woman and slipped inside.

As Mark had expected, it was a suite, just like his own. The fact that Eduardo had been living here for weeks struck him, and he suddenly felt like a trespasser. But one look at the place told him that Eduardo definitely, definitely wasn’t okay. The generic hotel art had been ripped from the walls. Tables were overturned. There was glass all over the floor, and Mark dimly remembered the crashing sound he’d heard over the phone. Then his heart skipped a beat as he realized that among the shards there were drops of blood.

“Wardo?” he called, his voice ringing through the quiet room. There was no answer, but as Mark crossed into the bedroom part of the suite, he found that an answer wasn’t needed.

Eduardo was on the floor, slumped against the side of the bed. He was holding an empty, broken vodka bottle in his hand, which was cut and bleeding. And he looked—dare Mark think it—pale. As pale as a person of Brazilian descent could look. When naturally tan Eduardo looked pale, there was definitely something wrong. Mark fumbled for the bedside phone and dialed the front desk. After he’d asked for a first aid kit, he hung up and crouched next to Eduardo.

“Hey,” Mark said. “Hey, Wardo.” There was no response. And then Mark realized that Eduardo didn’t appear to be breathing.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Mark hissed. “Wardo!” He shook him by the shoulders, trying to go over in his head how you were supposed to do CPR. Lay them flat and then…were you supposed to tilt their chin up or down?

Mark was just about to give it a try when Eduardo’s eyes snapped open, inches from Mark’s face and beautiful such a relief to see. Eduardo coughed and promptly began to vomit. Now this, this Mark knew how to handle. He leaned Eduardo forward to prevent him from choking. After Eduardo had sufficiently covered both of them and the floor with sick, Mark noticed his shoulders were shaking. He was puzzled until he heard noises that sounded a lot like dry, raw sobs. And when he lifted Eduardo’s face to his own, he knew.

Before tonight, Mark had seen Eduardo cry a grand total of once: the day he’d smashed Mark’s laptop and stormed out of the Facebook offices. And even then, you couldn’t exactly call that crying. There’d just been traces of tears, welling up in his eyes and making them shine. So to see Eduardo sobbing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath was baffling. He could think of only one thing to do.

“Come on,” he said, lifting Eduardo up. He had intended to carry him, but since Eduardo was bigger than he was, he ended up sort of half-dragging him into the bathroom and dropping him in the shower. He turned on the faucet, and stepped between Eduardo and the initially icy water, so that it wouldn’t be as much of a shock for him. When the water finally warmed up he moved out of the way and let Eduardo become drenched as he lay in the tub.

Mark had come to believe that the best place to cry if you absolutely had to was the shower, because the noise drowned out your whimpering and the water washed away your tears. And cry Eduardo did, hard, and for a long time. Mark sat on the toilet, shivering, looking away pointedly because he could not stand how small and vulnerable Eduardo looked. Eduardo still hadn’t spoken a word to him, and Mark wondered if he was even coherent enough to realize Mark was there.

At that moment there was a knock on the door. The first aid kit. Mark had almost forgotten. He turned to Eduardo and said, “Just…stay there, okay? I’ll be right back.” He slipped and slid all the way to the door, opened it, and accepted the first aid kit with his sopping wet hands. The hotel worker looked appalled but Mark really couldn’t care less. He shut the door and went to tend to Eduardo.

When he got back to the bathroom he found that Eduardo had shut off the water and was sitting in the tub, soaking wet and shivering. His face had become a storm cloud, again. Mark could feel Eduardo’s pain, a black hole sucking him down. He grabbed a towel and knelt next to him. Eduardo did not acknowledge his presence.

“Okay,” Mark said after a moment. “You, uh, cut yourself pretty bad, so I’m just going to—“ he reached for Eduardo’s hand.

Eduardo jerked back. “Don’t touch me.”

Mark exhaled a short burst from his nostrils. “Look. I know you hate me. Believe it or not, you’ve made that pretty clear. But I also know that you’re bleeding and that cut looks like the type of thing that could get infected if you don’t take care of it and regardless of what you believe I do not actually want you to die of some weird hand gangrene so I would appreciate it if you just—“ He grabbed Eduardo’s hand. “—Let me do this for you.” This time, Eduardo did not resist.

Mark knew next to nothing about first aid but he did his best to dry Eduardo’s hand and clumsily wrap it in gauze. As he looked at the shoddily constructed bandage he realized that, had their roles been reversed, Eduardo would have done a much better job caring for Mark. And suddenly all the nights Eduardo had helped Mark stumble home, trashed out of his mind, all the times they had talked for hours about something on which Mark was fixated until he felt better about it, all the times Eduardo had said Don’t worry, I’m here for you, Everything’s going to be okay…they all flashed through Mark’s mind and left him with a pang so strong that his vision blurred with tears. No, Mark, he thought. This is not the time.

Eduardo allowed Mark to strip off his wet, vomit soaked clothes, to help him to bed, to lay him down, wearing nothing but a towel. He lay still, almost frighteningly so, except that he was breathing deeply, sinking into sleep at last. And just as Mark was headed for the door, he heard a small voice.

“Stay.”

He turned back around. Eduardo was looking at him through half-closed eyes.

“Okay,” he relented, because hey, he should probably stay just to make sure Eduardo would be okay. His eyes sought out a couch on which he could sleep. “I’ll just be over here.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

Eduardo glanced toward the empty half of the bed meaningfully. “Stay. Please. Stay.”

And, incredibly, Mark found himself crawling into bed next to Eduardo. Just to be safe, he told himself. Just to keep an eye on him. But when Eduardo turned into him and laid his head on Mark’s chest, he found himself wondering what he was doing, why he was really there. And he wasn’t sure why he did it, but he wrapped an arm around Eduardo’s bare, narrow back, because it just felt like the right thing to do.

“You must be drunk out of your mind,” he murmured to Eduardo.

“Must be,” Eduardo sighed sleepily. And something about the whole thing gave Mark the weirdest sense of déjà vu.

Mark woke up in the early afternoon, alone in the bed. And as the light streamed in through the windows, he felt like an intruder all over again. He sat up, drawing his knees up to his chest, and looked around. Eduardo had been busy. The art was re-hung, the floor had been cleaned and swept, Eduardo’s side of the bed was even neatly made. Didn’t he know that was housekeeping’s job? And that’s when he noticed Eduardo himself, leaning against a wall, watching Mark intently. Just by looking at him, you’d never have guessed that he nearly gave himself alcohol poisoning the previous night. In fact, the only evidence last night had happened at all was the cut on Eduardo’s hand and the lingering redness in his eyes.

“Hey,” Mark said. Because what else was he supposed to do?

“Hello,” came the stony reply.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better.”

“That’s good.”

“You broke into my room last night.”

Mark cocked his head. “Not exactly. I told the receptionist I was your cousin. That there was a family emergency.”

“Which was a lie.”

“The family part, yes. The emergency part, no.” Mark stared at Eduardo. “You were really sick last night. Like, stop breathing kind of sick.”

“Great,” Eduardo said bitterly. “Just what you wanted.”

“What?”

“You said I should just drink myself to death. So I tried.”

Mark inwardly cursed his word choice over the phone last night. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

“No, I didn’t. You cut me out, Mark. We were friends and we started Facebook together and you dropped me like I was dirt. Like I was nothing. How am I supposed to tell the truth from bullshit? How am I supposed to know you didn’t just use me for the money?”

“What the fuck, Eduardo? This is not about Facebook!”

“Of course it is! It’s always about Facebook! Everything is about Facebook!”

“A website did not make you do this, Eduardo.”

“No, you’re right, Mark. You made me do this. You are the reason. You, you, you. I guess you finally see it now. Congratulations.” He dragged his face across his sleeve, fists clenched.

It was a moment before Mark could get his lips to move. “See what?”

Eduardo exploded. “That I LOVED you, okay? I cared about you more than anyone else on the planet! I would have done anything for you, don’t you see that? I could have made money any way I chose to, but I chose Facebook because I wanted to be by your side, because I wanted to be with you, because I loved you. And I thought maybe one day you would wake up and see that, but what do I get? You cut me out, and then you don’t speak to me for two years. Two years! Jesus, Mark.”

“Loved. You said loved. Past tense.”

Eduardo rubbed his forehead. “Interpret it however you want, Mark, because obviously you will never understand what I am trying to say to you. Okay? Just go.”

Mark sighed softly, almost imperceptibly. He looked around for his things before realizing he’d come with nothing but the clothes on his back, which were still damp. On his way out, he stopped in front of Eduardo, who was still standing there, his face buried in his hands. And he wasn’t sure why he did it, but he grasped Eduardo’s wrists, pulled his hands away, and kissed him.

It was a brief kiss. He didn’t give Eduardo time to kiss back because he was sure Eduardo wouldn’t. He broke away and looked into Eduardo’s eyes, and for the first time that morning, they weren’t filled with darkness or anger. Just shock. Disbelief, even. Like last night, when he’d opened his eyes and Mark had been so relieved to know that he was alive.

Mark dropped Eduardo’s wrists. “I’m not stupid, you know. And for the record, you didn’t speak to me for two years either. Everything you said…it goes both ways.” And with that, he left.

It was only in the elevator that Mark let the tears flow. Shit. This was the first time he’d cried outside of a shower stall in years. He hit the button that would take him to the main lobby, and put his face in his hands. And that’s when he heard it.

“Mark!”

Just as the elevator doors were about to close, a hand appeared between them. Eduardo grasped Mark, pulling him directly from the elevator into his arms. Eduardo kissed him, hard, and needily, and Mark found himself responding, and fuck, the tears were flowing now and mixing with Eduardo’s and he didn’t even care. They kissed clumsily back down the hall towards Eduardo’s room. Eduardo whispered pleading apologies between their lips, and Mark apologized back, and when he realized he meant it the regret and the want and the need mixed together and became almost unbearable.

Mark breathed a sigh of relief as they fell onto Eduardo’s bed, and he ripped Eduardo’s shirt from his chest, with no regard for the buttons. They popped off and flew everywhere, clattering against the floor as Eduardo worked Mark’s damp clothes from his body and Mark was sliding Eduardo’s pants and underwear off of his skinny, taut legs, and then there they were, naked with stiff erections, and Mark had forgotten how fucking beautiful his friend was, or perhaps he had never fully noticed it until that day. Eduardo pulled lube and a condom from his bedside dresser, and Mark realized he must have had others up here, to keep from being so alone all these cold nights. A pang rippled through him, but it was almost immediately replaced by a shudder of pleasure as Eduardo wrapped his long, slender fingers around Mark’s cock, stroking it until it was rock-hard against his stomach. He slicked his fingers with lube and made eye contact with Mark. “Is this okay?”

Mark could only reply with a breathless “God, yes.”

And with Mark’s blessing, Eduardo gently slipped one—two—and finally three fingers inside of him. He shuddered as the articulate digits curled slightly, brushing against his prostate and sending waves of goose bumps up and down his creamy skin. Eduardo let out a low whistle. “Jesus, Mark. You’re tight.”

Mark reached up and tugged Eduardo’s hair insistently. “Fuck me, Wardo,” he pleaded. Eduardo didn’t need telling twice.

For the first time maybe ever, the gears in Mark’s head nearly stopped their constant turning. He’d had sex with other people before, men and women alike, but nothing like this. Like everything else he did, when it came to sex, Eduardo was intense. He went painfully slow, prolonging their ecstasy as much as possible. And he was gentle, too, entirely devoted to making sure he wasn’t hurting Mark, taking care of him, as always. Old habits, Mark thought ruefully. It was the last coherent thought he had for a long time.

From then on out, Mark remembered only tactile things—Wardo’s delicate fingers, all over his skin, in his hair, grasping, pulling, Eduardo’s breath, which still smelled faintly of alcohol, his sharp teeth, biting at Mark’s ear, his jaw, his neck, Eduardo’s trembling leg muscles, against Mark’s thighs, rough, warm skin everywhere, Eduardo’s pulsing cock, hard and strong and emptying inside of him, at the same time as Mark, who came hard all over their stomachs, their chests. Eduardo collapsed on top of Mark, breathing hard and trembling.

“This doesn’t change things,” he whispered into Mark’s ear.

“I know.”

“We have a lot to work through.”

“I know.”

Eduardo pushed up on his arms, looking at Mark. “I need to know that you are willing to work through this. Even though it won’t be easy.”

“I will. We will.”

“Because I want you. I want all of you, every day, all the time. I want you…to stay.”

“I will.”

Eduardo furrowed his brow. “You promise?”

Mark pushed himself up to meet Eduardo’s lips, kissing him softly.

Eduardo smiled through the kiss. “You know, we slept in the same bed once before.”

“Did we?”

“Mhm. You were drunk.”

“I always sort of thought I made that up.”

“You didn’t.”

“I kind of feel like I’m making this up, too.”

“You’re not,” Eduardo said, laying his head on his chest. “It’s real. Thank god. It’s real.”

As they kissed, the afternoon sun began to wane, bathing them in warmth and light. And Mark had never wanted to be anywhere else. He kissed the sleeping man next to him and whispered, “I promise, Eduardo. I’ll stay.”


End file.
